Something Somewhere, page 7
‘Oh!’
He sat up, alarmed. Emily had stood up and gone towards the edge of the stage.
‘Look,’ she said. ‘Over there. The koel.’
He followed her arm. In the distance, on a poked-out tree branch, he spied a small bird, grey and white, stripey.
‘See it?’
‘Yes.’ He thought the bird was lovely, and definitely worth drawing when he got back to the farmhouse.
‘Poor thing,’ said Emily, in a trembly voice. ‘It’s about to die.’
Die? The word made Malt feel queasy. ‘How can you know that?’ he asked, but Emily shushed him with her hand.
‘There’s nothing to be done,’ she said. ‘Just stay respectful and watch.’
Tight with concern, he did so. The koel stayed on the branch, its neck wobbling busily as it surveyed the bush and the sky. Then, for no obvious reason, the bird stopped what it was doing and slowly lowered itself into a ball. A moment of nothing, then Malt saw the koel fold both wings into its sides and drop its head further into its chest.
‘What’s it doing?’
‘Shh,’ said Emily.
He kept watching. The koel swayed a little, as if caught by the breeze. Another moment, before the bird toppled off the branch, its body rolling around and around as it plummeted towards the darkness below, and disappeared into the stomach of the Valley.
The trees closed over, and the clouds continued their gentle movement across the sky. It was as if the koel had never existed.
‘Nothing more,’ said Emily. Her hands were firmly together, her fingers flexing and unflexing.
Malt stared at her. ‘Tell me,’ he said. ‘How did you know?’
‘Huh?’ Emily was still distracted.
‘How did you know the bird was going to do that?’
‘I just did.’ Emily shook her head, as if waking from a dream. ‘Sorry, that’s a crummy answer. Look, Malteser, I spend a lot of time up here. It’s my favourite part of the universe. I suppose, because of that, I naturally know stuff. Or at least, sense it.’
She stood, running her hands down her pale dress as she did so. ‘A sweet little koel,’ she said sadly. ‘She shouldn’t have died. She wasn’t even that old.’
That night the white owl came back, floating through the moonlight to Malt’s windowsill. Banjo whimpered as the bird swooped down to its customary position, but settled after Malt patted his back and massaged his ears.
Malt left Banjo, crept over and looked more closely at the white owl. The bird did not move.
‘Why do you come here?’ he asked.
The owl tilted its head and made a soft hooting noise. Its deep-set eyes and round face seemed to be sympathetic, as if it was saying, ‘That doesn’t matter. I’m here now. You go to sleep and I’ll keep you safe. You’ll always be safe with me.’
The Lie
It was early December. Summer had awoken and was creeping across the land. Malt was at the kitchen table, drawing birds, while his mother riffled the pages of a magazine and alternated between humming and sighing.
‘You know,’ she said, ‘you can always do that in my room.’
Malt nodded and kept drawing.
‘Just you and me,’ his mother added. ‘I wouldn’t mind. I never mind, you know that.’
‘Here is better,’ Malt told her. He stayed with the drawing, colouring in a wing, but he could feel his mother moving around, restless. It was no surprise, then, when the magazine was discarded and she sat next to him, leaning in.
‘What is it?’
‘A bird.’
‘I can see that, dodo.’ She laughed and pushed a kiss onto his forehead. ‘What kind of bird?’
‘Just a bird,’ Malt told her. For some reason, he wasn’t ready to share the koel.
His mother stretched back in her chair. ‘Nice life you lead,’ she said, ‘drawing and exploring. Enjoy it while you can, buster, because it’s back to school next year. Can’t avoid the inevitable, can we?’
The inevitable, thought Malt. What is that?
He continued to pilot his pencil across the page. ‘Which school?’ he asked.
‘Depends where we are.’
‘Here?’ he asked hopefully, but his mother ignored the question, instead picking up a novel from the table and asking how his reading was going.
‘Good.’ His grandmother had made sure of that, pulling a bundle of paperbacks out of a cardboard box and sitting with him while he chugged along, a chapter at a time.
‘These belonged to your mother,’ she’d told him. ‘Bonnie was a great reader, until she decided not to bother anymore.’
Malt had wanted to ask what had happened, but he’d guessed from his grandmother’s pained expression that she’d be unlikely to answer him.
His mother stood and went to the kitchen window. Rain had fallen overnight and the sky continued to threaten. The atmosphere was stifling, as if the walls of the world were closing in.
She said, ‘It’ll be Christmas soon.’
Malt thought about Christmas. In the past, it had always been just his mother and him, a well-established routine. His night-before job was to decorate the plastic tree. While he wrapped tinsel and hung bells off the branches, his mother pre-cooked pieces of chicken, or maybe some ham, with pumpkin and potatoes. In the morning, he waited patiently until she fumbled her way out of bed and began the day by playing one of her favourite songs, like ‘I Will Survive’ or ‘Girls Just Wanna Have Fun’. After this, the food was reheated, a salad quickly cut and assembled, then she gave him his present.
They ate their lunch, then she lay down for a nap while Malt cleared the dishes and played with his new toy, whatever she’d been able to afford. Later that afternoon, his mother switched on the TV and they watched whatever she wanted to watch. If she was in a good mood, she let Malt play games on her phone, which was boring but passed the time.
Now she came back to the table and touched Malt on the head in that way she had.
Remember me? I’m your mum, your beautiful mum.
‘I might ask your father over,’ she said. ‘We can have a family Christmas. How would that be?’
Instantly, that sick feeling in the bottom of his stomach, the knowledge that he wanted to say no to his father coming over, no to lots of things, but couldn’t.
Should he talk to Emily? She’d help him, of course she would.
His mother said in a firmer voice, ‘Malt, I spoke with Willo last night. He’s sorry he hasn’t been around. He’s like you and me, he’s adjusting. It takes time. Anyway,’ she continued, ‘I asked him if he’d look after you this afternoon while I’m getting my hair done. And he said he would, so—’
‘I don’t need looking after,’ Malt said quickly, desperately. He wasn’t ready for an afternoon with his father. And besides, Emily would be waiting. She could tell him more insect and animal stories, they could go to the palladium—
‘Today, you do.’ His mother’s hands were firmly on her hips. ‘I want you to spend time with your father, get to know him properly. So, no arguments. That’s my—our—decision.’
Malt knew there was no choice, but he remembered that terrible night, Willo being sloppy and uninterested, like someone’s neglected pet . . .
‘Get changed,’ his mother told him. ‘Whatever you can find. Whatever looks clean.’
Willo met them at the entrance to a shopping arcade in Pembrooke. He was wearing jeans and another black T-shirt, but Malt thought that he looked neater than last time, the stray pieces tucked into place.
‘Four o’clock,’ said his mother.
‘What?’ Willo scrunched up his face. ‘Three hours? Some haircut. Hey, got any cash? I’m broke.’
‘You’re always broke.’
‘I’m doing you a favour,’ he said. ‘I don’t have to do this. No obligation whatsoever.’
Malt’s mother’s eyes narrowed, but she reached into her handbag and handed over some notes, before giving him a quick hug.
‘See you, sweetie! Have fun!’ She raced into the arcade.
Malt stood awkwardly, unsure about what to say or do, until Willo said, ‘Come on. You can meet me mates.’
They went through an archway, behind the arcade, down a street and into a building with stairs and numbers on the doors. Willo opened the door to number five and led Malt into a room that smelled stale, like old shoes. Four men sat around a table, playing cards. They looked up as Willo and Malt entered. One of them nudged his nearest companion and said something that Malt couldn’t hear.
Willo led Malt to the table. A man who was wearing a checked shirt said, ‘Is this him?’
‘Nah, it’s the Prince of Persia.’ Willo grabbed a chair for him and a chair for Malt, and hauled them into the space at the end of the table. They sat, then Willo said, ‘Malt, these are me mates.’
‘G’day, Prince,’ said Checked Shirt. ‘I’m Frank.’
Malt shook hands with Frank, Roly and Pearcey, and bumped fists with Dog. He thought the men seemed quite nice, although Dog smelled funny and had knots in his beard. He wondered if his father knew the men from the army.
They chatted about things that Malt didn’t understand, and cheered or complained about their cards. Malt watched and listened, making sure that he kept himself to himself. The men were obviously good friends, but in a jokey kind of way, calling each other names, then laughing about it. Malt especially liked Pearcey, who checked whether Malt was okay, and gave him a packet of chips and a can of lemonade.
It was close to four o’clock when he felt confident enough to ask the men about being soldiers. There was a brief lull in the conversation, so he said, ‘Were you all in the army?’
Dog laughed. So did Roly.
‘Which army would that be?’ asked Frank.
‘I don’t know,’ said Malt, feeling nervous. ‘I thought, because my dad is a soldier, you must all be soldiers.’
The men were silent, each glancing at the other.
‘Is that what she said?’ asked Willo. His voice was back to that same low purr from when he’d visited the farmhouse.
Malt nodded. He knew that he’d done something wrong, but—
‘A soldier,’ said Willo.
‘Pretty creative,’ said Dog. ‘Points for that.’
‘Born storyteller,’ said Roly.
‘Born liar, more like.’ Willo tapped a card on the edge of the table. ‘Listen, kid,’ he said to Malt, ‘I was never a soldier. I’ve done heaps of other stuff, most of which I can’t tell you about, but never soldiering. Your mother lied. Typical Bonnie. She lies to other people, and she lies to herself. Always has done.’
He checked his watch before dropping his cards onto the table, standing and telling Malt that it was time to go.
The Truth
Malt didn’t ask his mother about what Willo said because he knew she’d get very angry. The kind of anger that, in the past, had frightened him. Besides, she was in a sing-songy mood when she picked him up from the front of the arcade and he didn’t want to spoil that, so he told her they’d gone to lots of places, and even though he couldn’t remember the names, it’d been interesting and fun. His mother seemed content with that explanation, preferring to talk about her hair.
‘Looks good, doesn’t it? I love, love, love this colour! Sandy blonde. What do you think?’
‘You look pretty,’ Malt said dutifully.
‘Model material?’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘Don’t be too enthusiastic.’
‘Sorry.’ He lowered his eyes and focused on the scar on his knee—a fall, that day he’d run from the haunted house—as the car sped up and the music on the radio became louder.
They arrived home. His grandmother was in the kitchen. While Malt went outside to organise Banjo’s supper, his mother took photos of herself and uploaded them. He heard her giggling, then answering a phone call. When he came back inside, she told him she was going out.
His grandmother looked up. ‘I made us a quiche.’
‘Sorry,’ said his mother, looking anything but. ‘Late call-up. Dinner with some people I met at the salon.’
Getting ready, she fizzed and sparked like a firecracker: teased hair, freshened makeup, gold earrings, the new green dress. ‘Bye, darling boy,’ she said, bear-hugging Malt. ‘Mamma won’t be late!’ And was quickly gone, the air settling in relief as the car roared away from the farmhouse.
Malt felt tired, and sad. He was beginning to understand why his mother had insisted on returning to Pembrooke. It hadn’t only been that the work had dried up or the need to find something somewhere. Likewise, meeting up with his father was part but not all of it. A big reason—maybe the biggest—had been so she could leave him at the farmhouse and do all the things that she couldn’t otherwise do because she had to look after a kid. Things like going out to parties, spending time with friends and enjoying herself.
His grandmother’s hand was on his shoulder, her light touch. ‘Hey,’ she said, ‘how about we head into the studio and do some painting?’
Malt shook his head. He could hear the clock ticking . . . its never-ending ticking.
His grandmother said, ‘Sweetheart, I know your mum has been out a lot lately, but she said she wouldn’t be late—’
There were hands inside him, stretching and pulling. He turned to his grandmother, took a deep breath and said, ‘My dad told me that he was never a soldier.’
His grandmother’s lips tightened. Overhead, they could both hear the early scratching of possums as they swung from the trees, and edged along the guttering that lined the roof.
‘Well,’ she said, ‘that’s true. He never was.’
‘But Mum said—’
‘Your mother says many things. Unfortunately—’
‘She said he was a soldier!’ So many times, he thought. Every week, every month, every year, a constant in their lives. He’s a secret soldier, fighting in a secret war. He’s there, now he’s there . . . The spinning globe . . .
His eyes stung like he had shampoo in them. His grandmother was holding him, as if to keep him warm.
‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Let’s have a hot chocolate and a chat, okay?’
Later, seated at the table, his grandmother told him about his father as a young man.
‘Not a bad person,’ she said, although she didn’t sound completely convinced. ‘Not underneath. Just silly. Wanting to have a good time, all the time.’
She told Malt about his mother.
‘Bonnie was a perfect child. Loving, happy and really good at school, especially with her writing and her singing. But that all changed. She became rebellious. It was like we—her dad, me, Pembrooke, everything—weren’t good enough anymore. I don’t know why. These things happen, I suppose. No rhyme or reason.’
She sighed and said, ‘Part of it was meeting Willo. He’s three years older than her, and from the moment he turned up, she thought he was the greatest. Couldn’t see—no, didn’t want to see—past the smart talk and empty promises. We warned her, but she wouldn’t listen. Then she started to blame your grandfather, said he was an old fuddy-duddy, didn’t understand her, never had. She broke his heart.’
She told Malt about himself, as well.
‘Bonnie was a very young mother,’ she said, ‘but I guess you already knew that. When we found out she was pregnant, it was a terribly difficult time. Willo had skipped town. No-one knew where he’d gone, or if they did, they weren’t saying. Bonnie was devastated. There was another problem, too, with a friend of hers. That hit her hard. I wanted to help, but her father wouldn’t hear of it. All those accusations—he was angrier than I’d ever seen him.’
She shook her head and sighed deeply. ‘The one thing they had in common,’ she said, ‘was their temper.’
But I’m not like that, thought Malt, and was glad.
‘Your grandfather and Bonnie said some awful things to each other, and he threw her out. I tried to stop him, but he wouldn’t listen, said she was disrespectful and selfish, and this had been coming for a long time. And that was that. Bonnie moved around, staying with friends, then she had you. I was allowed to speak with her occasionally on the phone—not proper conversations, but better than nothing. And she refused to see her father.’
For Malt, it was strange hearing this story, because it seemed to be about other people, people he didn’t know.
‘Then she left town,’ his grandmother said. ‘You were only about four months old. Bonnie rang me from the bus station and said she was going to find Willo, but it was hopeless. I knew it would be hopeless. If people don’t want to be found, well, they won’t be. I did my best to keep contact with Bonnie, which wasn’t always easy because she didn’t stay anywhere for long. But her father refused to even acknowledge her as his daughter. He was sick, of course, with cancer, which only made things worse. Then one day, Jan Wilson let slip where Willo was.’
Jan, Malt thought. The lady at the dress shop?
‘He’d headed north. Queensland, apparently, somewhere on the Gold Coast. Jan was very insistent that Willo was getting himself sorted. Looking for work, finding a way. He’d made mistakes, she said, but so had other people. He was a good boy, a good son, just needed someone to give him a chance. A mother’s love can be blind, that’s for certain.’
She picked up Malt’s emptied mug and stared at the chocolate patterns inside.
‘And now he’s here,’ his grandmother said. ‘Back in Pembrooke because there’s nowhere else for him to go, I suppose.’
‘Why did Mum lie?’ Malt asked.
‘Oh, Malt,’ she said, ‘it’s wrong, isn’t it? All this adult secrecy. She’s never told me why she said those things—and kept saying them. But I can only guess it was because she was ashamed of Willo’s hopelessness, or she wanted to somehow delay the truth. Maybe she thought that giving him a better story would give Willo time to become a better person. Maybe she said it so often, she started to believe it. People do that.’
